


suitably filthy

by dustofwarfare



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blasphemy, CF Route, Dirty Talk, F/M, Kink Meme, Post-Canon, face riding, messy sex on purpose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:41:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24046804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare
Summary: Edelgard pushes strands of her damp white hair off her face and sighs. “You are the only man I know who would use the termdeicidein bed.”“Yeah?” He tilts his head, looking boyishly pleased. “You’re the only person I know who’s actually killed a god, so we’re even. Now, Oh Slayer of Profane Beasts, how should I fuck you in the bed of the tyrant you deposed?”On a visit to Garreg Mach, Edelgard and her husband decide to make use of the former archbishop's bed. (A fill for the FE3H kinkmeme!)
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 19
Kudos: 141
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	suitably filthy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the kink meme! The prompt was:
>
>> Post CF route, Claude is spared and Edelgard steps down as emperor while the new meritocracy government forms. She still works as ambassador, and has a political marriage w/ Claude. Together they visit the monastery for old time's sake, and Claude convinces her to help him pull off something mischievous he has been thinking about since his academy days.
>> 
>> Focus on the thrill of the taboo, and possibly being caught since the door handle doesn't work anymore. Additional kinks can be included at your own discretion.  
> 
> 
> Thanks to Mxticketyboo for the title suggestion ;) This is pure dirty-talking porn, friends. 

“So,” Claude says, taking her hands. He grins at her, those bright eyes of his sparkling. “Wanna do something bad, Princess?” 

She is not a princess. She is not even an Emperor, not anymore, ever since she stepped down and left the governance of Fodlan to those who were best suited to the task. Edelgard won her throne wading knee-deep in the blood of the killing fields, and such brutal regimes fell with the Holy Kingdom and the thrice-damned Church. Let the future of Fodlan rise in committees and with the impassioned speeches of bureaucrats, and the weapons of war rust behind the glass cases of museums. 

But Claude’s always liked calling her that. Especially here at Garreg Mach, the place where they’d first met, playing at being students with their secrets held tight and quiet to their chests. There are no secrets anymore, of course; her rebellion burned the old world down for the new to rise from its ashes, and Claude - Prince Khalid - will one day take the throne of Almyra. 

But for today, they’re visiting as members of the last class that attended Garreg Mach Monastery (amusing to think they did not, actually, graduate). It’s currently undergoing extensive renovations, with Linhardt carefully cataloguing all of the objects being removed from the tomb and the catacombs, the statues dismantled, the old cathedral full of scaffolding as it’s turned into a proper town hall. 

A lot of it looks just like the Black Eagle Strike Force left it on their march to Fhirdiad to wrest the world from the claws of a false goddess and her sycophantic followers; the greenhouse, the dining hall, the courtyard gardens where Edelgard once took tea with her professor. The dormitories are still there, too, though most of the furniture is gone now, rain-soaked mattresses and sodden rugs hauled out and floors swept clean, windows repaired. 

Edelgard and Claude are here on a diplomatic visit, to thank the townfolk who are working to restore the buildings and the ground on behalf of the new government of United Fodlan. But for the moment, it’s just the two of them in the hallway near Rhea’s old audience chamber. There’s a sound of distant hammers and saws as the construction continues; but here it’s quiet, dim in the hallways with only a slight bit of midday light filtering through the dirty windows. 

“Something bad?” Edelgard asks, tilting her head. “What did you have in mind? Recreating some of your schoolboy behavior?” 

Claude flashes a grin at her. Time hasn’t changed him that much; there are a few more lines around his pretty eyes, and he’s a bit broader in the shoulders, his beard fuller...but that smile, that sly smirk of his, is the same as it ever was. “I was thinking something a little more grown-up. Come on. You trust me, right?” 

“Most days,” Edelgard says, only half-joking. They get along well enough, for all their marriage was political in nature and how they’ve spent the majority of it apart. Now that she’s an ambassador and not an emperor, though, they’re starting to find a rhythm in each other’s company. 

“Well. I think you’re gonna like this.” With a wink, he tucks her hand into his arm and starts walking toward the stairs. 

“Claude,” she admonishes. “All of the beds have been removed from the dorms.” 

“Dorm room sex? Princess, really.” Claude looks down at her with a shake of his head. “Give me some credit. No one wants to go back to _that_.” 

She gives him an amused look. “Had a lot of sex in your dorm room, did you?” 

“Constantly,” Claude says. “In my dreams. That I had after I fell asleep reading a book.” He glances down the hallway, then heads not down the stairs but _up_ , toward the third floor. At the top of the stairs, he presses his back to the stone, then holds up one finger to his mouth and ducks around to look down the hallway. 

He steps out and motions to her; Edelgard huffs a little and goes to join him. He moves like he’s pretending to be a spy in a children’s game of hide-and-seek, and waits for Edelgard to join him. Which she does, albeit without the sneaking. 

“Why fuck in the dorm when we can do it somewhere way more comfortable _and_ a little blasphemous to boot?” Claude asks, and pushes open the doors. “I always kinda wanted to bring someone up here, even before I knew the archbishop was a monster. Uh. A literal one.” 

Beyond the open doors is the bed that once belonged to Rhea, the posters still hung with curtains, the silk bedding still untouched. 

Edelgard steps inside. The room is hushed and quiet, air slightly stale from disuse. Claude pushes the door closed behind them, pushes on the handle. 

“No lock,” Claude says. 

“Of course not,” Edelgard says, stepping closer, reaching out to run her fingers over the coverlet. The room has been locked up so long that it isn’t even that dusty. “Who would the Immaculate One fear enough to lock her door?” She smiles. 

“You,” Claude says, stepping up to slide his arms around her waist and pull her back against him. Her hair is pinned up; his mouth ghosts over the side of her neck and makes her shiver. He pushes his hips against her, his cock already hard, hands settling on her waist. 

Edelgard’s breath catches. She’s never thought of herself as a prude, and she’s always enjoyed sex with Claude -- he’s a generous and considerate lover, and he’s always up for trying whatever she wants; a particular favorite memory is her first visit to Almyra shortly after they married, when he gifted her a contraption that allowed her to take him as one takes a man. 

She leans back against him as his hands slide up and over her breasts, his mouth pressing hot kisses beneath her ear. “What are you suggesting?” she asks, but of course she knows. She just wants to hear him say it. 

“No one’s slept on that bed but her,” Claude says, in a low voice that sends shivers racing up her spine. “Let’s fuck on it.” 

“Mm,” says Edelgard, already growing wet at the thought of it, fucking Claude on that bed where that monstrous creature once slept and dreamed her bestial dreams. “Let’s.” She wriggles a bit and turns in his arms, smiling up at him. She reaches up and traces one finger over his bottom lip. “But make it dirty, Claude. Filthy. I want that bed to be a _mess_ when we’re done. Understand?” 

He catches her wrist in his hand and sucks her finger into his mouth. “I wouldn’t give it to you any other way, Princess.” 

“Very well.” She tugs her hand free, wraps her arms around his neck and leans up on tiptoes to kiss him. “Defile me.” 

***  
He strips her, clearly eager and yet careful not to tear or rend the fabric of her dress. Her clothing is no longer as elaborate as it was when she was emperor, but there are plenty of buttons, laces and little claps, delicate enough to be an impediment when one is in a hurry. Claude has clever fingers, though, and they make short work of the rather complicated bodice of her dress. 

“I could fuck you without taking this off, but I think if we’re going to do this properly, we should both be naked,” Claude says. Once her dress is loose, he simply picks her up bodily and lifts her out of it, leaving the fabric pooled at her feet and her in nothing but her underskirt, underwear and thin chemise. 

Sometimes he takes his time, sucks on her nipples through the linen, mouths at her cunt until the fabric is as soaked as she is. He’s fucked her with her dress flipped up over her hips, bent over a table in her office back at Enbarr, his own pants simply unlaced. He likes when she wears nothing but her riding boots in bed, hair loose, holding a crop. He’s had her ride him like a wyvern, scratching bloody tracks down his chest with her sharp nails, with her dressed in the traditional gauze and silk dress of an Almyran queen. 

But now, he just divests her of her underskirt, slides the straps of her chemise off and pushes her underwear off so she’s naked save her boots; before she can bend down to take them off, he picks her up and puts her on the bed, then attends to them himself. He tosses one over his shoulder and grins. 

“Someone could walk in, you know,” she says, as he takes off the other boot, and then her stockings, though he does, often, like to leave those on. It feels delicious to be naked, here on this bed where they have no business being.

“Won’t they get an eyeful,” says Claude, eyes roving hot over her naked body. “Take your hair down for me, Princess.” 

“While I normally have no issue with that nickname, Claude, perhaps you’d use my given name, here,” Edelgard says, rising to her knees on the bed as she pulls the pins from her hair. “I think she’d hate hearing it more.” 

“Edelgard it is,” he says, reaching up to unclip his cape from his shoulder. “I do like your name, you know.” 

“Mmm. Come here.” She waits for him to step closer, and with her kneeling in the bed, it’s easy to help strip him of all his impossible clothing -- his is more complicated than hers, with the cravat and the jacket and his colorful sash belted around his trim waist. He’s a beautiful man, all lean muscles and golden skin, lightly furred chest and the trail of dark hair that runs down his chest to the waistband of his pants. 

“So, how do you want it, Edelgard?” He winks at her as her small hands work at the laces of his pants, pausing briefly to rub her palm over the erection tenting the fabric. 

“I already told you,” she says, helping him push them off. She’s impatient, she realizes, as he steps back to get his boots off. She drops a hand and rubs herself between her legs, where she’s already slick. 

“I meant specifics.” He straightens as he finishes with his boots, his eyes on her hand stroking softly between her thighs. “Want to ride me, want it on your hands and knees? Want both?” 

He steps closer and takes her hand from between her legs, sucks lightly at her fingers to catch her taste. He makes a pleased sound and she scoots back on the bed, wanting him there with her. Excited at the thought of what they’re doing, in the middle of the day, on the archbishop’s bed. “I have every faith in you that you’ll make it suitably filthy,” Edelgard assures him. 

“So proper,” he teases, climbing on the bed. “Mmm, look at you. You’re so beautiful when you’re being naughty. Lie back on the bed for me. Sell it -- there you go. Yeah,” Claude says, kneeling while she arranges herself back on the pillows. 

_Her pillows. That bitch, she slept here and dreamed and I took it all from her, everything, may you rot in the rubble of the world I destroyed._ She swallows, turned on as much by the thought of where she’s doing this as she is by the sight of her husband, naked and aroused, hand working over his cock as he stares down at her body. 

She’d been worried, at first, that he would find her hideous; she’d had precious little time for sex or intimacy, too busy running a war to care overmuch about such things. But he was gorgeous, so handsome he turned heads from everyone from the staff to the queen of Brigid herself to -- even though he might deny it -- the Minister of the Imperial Household. 

Hubert might still distrust Claude down to his bones, but Edelgard had seen her faithful friend’s eyes linger a bit on the curve of Claude’s shoulders, his muscular thighs in those tight riding leathers. And she did not think Hubert’s husband was at all adverse to the sight of Claude on her arm, dressed up in all his Almyran finery, either. 

She was scarred from the hideous experiments in the dark that left her body broken and her mind subsumed with absolute focus; the things that sharpened her into a weapon had not done her beauty any favors, or so she thought, once. But Claude loved to kiss each scar that cut over her pale body, speaking in tones of wonder at her strength, her fortitude. They admired warriors in Almyra, he told her, and her scars only made her more beautiful. It took some time for her to believe him, but he was nothing if not both persuasive _and_ persistent. 

“You’re so wet, I can see it from here,” he says, staring down at the place between her thighs. “Spread your legs for me, sweetheart. Ah, that’s it. Show me how wet that slit of yours is.” 

She shivers; the things he says in bed are so filthy that it makes her blush, even now, when she should be used to it. But she does as he asks and spreads her thighs; letting him see. He’s staring at her with half-closed eyes, hand working over his cock, breathing hard. She isn’t the talker he is but she’s always been rather good at action, so she slides her fingers through herself, gathers the wetness on her fingers, and sucks on them. 

“Fuck,” Claude says, and they both stop and look at each other, as if they just realized where they are. She gives a small laugh that sounds a bit like a giggle, and they share a conspiratorial smile before she reaches down and rubs herself again. This time, she holds his gaze and extends her arm out to the side, dragging her fingers along the bedding as if marking it. 

He smiles like a fox and his head tips back, hand twisting over the head of his cock. “That’s it. I knew you’d be up for this plan. Fuck yourself with your fingers, let me watch.” 

She shivers and does so, sliding two fingers into herself and arching her back as she works them in and out; for a moment there’s no other sound but their breathing, and eventually he stops stroking his cock to rub over his balls, tugging at them as if trying to keep himself from getting too worked up as he watches her fuck herself. 

Edelgard pulls her fingers free and holds them up; they’re shining and slick, and her clit is throbbing, untouched. 

“Normally I’d want those in my mouth,” Claude says, in a husky voice. “But I think you know what you should do with them, yeah?” 

She holds his stare and does it again, drags her fingers over the pillowcase, down over the coverlet. It gives her such a thrill that she can’t quite lay still, writhing a bit, pushing her heels into the bedding. 

Claude grins at her and moves in fast, licks up her cunt so quickly that she’s not prepared for it and cries out from the stimulation on her neglected clit. He doesn’t stay there, though; instead, he flops to his back next to her and says, “Ride my face, beautiful. Come on my mouth and make it loud enough that bitch will hear you in hell.” 

Edelgard should laugh, it’s an absurd thing to say, which she’s sure he knows and yet. _Yet_. It gets her so hot she practically flings herself toward him, straddling his shoulders and giving a bit of a surprised yelp as he grabs her hips and slides down the bed, so she’s positioned over his mouth. 

Her fingers curl around the curved wooden headboard as she lowers herself, gasping outright as she feels his mouth start to work her. Pleasure is a sharp bright burst; normally she would close her eyes and enjoy it, he’s so very good at this, but she wants to keep her eyes open, wants to see the room in all its empty glory as she bucks and writhes atop him. 

The bed is a sturdy thing, and it’s quiet enough up here, removed from the hustle and bustle below that all she hears are her own gasps and heated breaths, the soft wet sounds of Claude’s mouth between her legs, the rustle of the silk beneath her knees. 

Claude makes a sound, fingers tightening just a shade too hard on her hips; she likes, too, how he knows just how rough he can be with her, how he’s taken the time to figure out the difference between what gets her off and what sends her back somewhere she doesn’t want to be. He sucks her clit and licks her slit and works her with his tongue, fucks her with it for a bit while she shudders and moans, skin growing damp with sweat, thighs beginning to shake. 

He lifts her off him enough to gasp, “Work for it, ride my face, you know I can take it,” before pulling her back down and going at her cunt like he’s starving for the taste of her. She’s flushed and panting with it, grinding down on him and bucking her hips almost wildly, so close -- 

“Oh, oh --” She’s not terribly vocal in bed, Edelgard always has been reserved in her passions out of sheer necessity, but it feels so good and she keeps thinking of how the door is closed but uselessly so, with a full contingent of people there working and with nothing stopping them from discovering the former Emperor sitting astride her husband’s face in the archbishop’s very bed. 

She comes with her head thrown back, grabbing at one of the curtains hanging from the bed’s poster and pulling it, forgetting her own strength so that she hears the fabric rip as she tightens her thighs around Claude’s head and rides out her orgasm. He eases her back after one long final lick, so that she’s straddling his upper chest. 

Edelgard is shaking a bit in the aftermath and he’s grinning up at her, mouth and chin wet and glistening. 

“You tore the curtain,” he says, with a gasping sort of laugh as he recovers his breathing. 

She is indeed holding a strip of the torn fabric in her right hand. She unclenches her fist, dangles it over him. “Keep it as a sign of my favor for your performance here, today.” 

“Sure,” says Claude, plucking it and twirling it around his finger before he tosses it on the floor. “But the performance isn’t over, yeah?” 

“I would hope not. The sheets are barely askew.” She climbs off him, tossing her hair, then reaches out to run a finger up the length of his hard cock where it is pressed against his stomach. “You can do better than that -- or much worse, as my own bedding can attest.” 

“Absolutely.” Claude flips them so that she is on her back, kissing her so she can taste herself on his mouth. “Too bad I didn’t think to bring that toy you like so much with me, you could fuck _me_ on all fours and I could definitely mess up the bed.” 

“I’m disappointed in your lack of forethought, Claude. And here you’ve always touted what a strategist you are,” says Edelgard, against his mouth. She can feel him smile. 

“It’s so hot when you use that tone in bed,” he teases, and kisses her again before pulling back. “How about I fuck you on your stomach? That should be nice and messy. Or are you going for more _deicide_ messy, so, less literal and more metaphorical….?” 

Edelgard pushes strands of her damp white hair off her face and sighs. “You are the only man I know who would use the term _deicide_ in bed.” 

“Yeah?” He tilts his head, looking boyishly pleased. “You’re the only person I know who’s actually killed a god, so we’re even. Now, Oh Slayer of Profane Beasts, how should I fuck you in the bed of the tyrant you deposed?” 

Edelgard stares at him. “Are you trying to tease me, turn me on, or make me angry, Claude?” 

“Definitely the first two, not the third...look, it sort of does it for me, talking about you overthrowing a despotic dragon god. I’m only human, Edelgard.” 

She tries to hide her snort of laughter, but isn’t quite successful. “I think I would enjoy having you take me on my stomach.” She pauses. “Rhea wasn’t a god, though.” She tilts her face up at the canopy of the bed and smiles. “Just a beast who thought herself one.” 

“Mm, yeah,” Claude says, kissing her neck, down to her breasts, sucking her nipples. “And you and your axe sure showed her.” He settles between her legs, rubbing his cock against her slit. “I don’t even need to be fucking you in her bed to find that hot, Prin--Edelgard.” 

She kisses him, briefly aware that her axe could have been his end as well as Rhea’s; and she is once again glad for the Professor’s guidance, that such a thing never came to pass. The thought vanishes like smoke, though, as Claude flips her over and gets himself situated. “You sure this is okay?” he asks, because he might be getting hot over blasphemy and fucking her in the archbishop’s bed, but he knows she doesn’t like to feel trapped and being fucked on her stomach isn’t always her preference for that very reason. 

Here, though, she likes it. She can feel the bedding beneath her, and Claude on top of her, careful and solicitous even though she can tell how hard he is, how eager. She’s still wet from coming on his mouth, and as he slides into her she rubs herself against the silk bedding and reaches out to grab at the coverlet with both hands, fisting it, pushing up a bit to take Claude as he eases his cock inside of her. 

“That’s it, oh, fuck, you’re so beautiful, you feel so good,” he says, like he always does when he has her like this, willing and wet for him. “Look at your back muscles, no wonder you toppled a god --” 

“Claude,” she says, but there’s a breathless laugh in her moan, because honestly one of the things she likes about him is that he brings a levity to her life she hasn’t had since she was a child, before the world went frightful and dark. He gets on his knees and tilts her hips up, then starts fucking her with sharp, hard thrusts, pulling her back on his cock each time he does it. 

She slides across the coverlet with every thrust forward. It feels so good, his cock so hard inside of her, his breathing ragged, his fingers holding her steady. She bites her lip, stares down at the bedding -- he’ll let her decide when to go all the way down, and she lets herself enjoy being pulled back on his cock for a bit before she slides forward, face down on the pillow, shifting from her knees so she’s flat on her stomach on the bed. 

Claude settles on top of her immediately, though he doesn’t press his whole weight against her, not yet. Instead he holds himself up with his hands next to her shoulders, but he’s got incredible core strength and he’s fucking her so hard, she’s starting to muffle her cries in the pillow. “Think you can rub off and come all over the sheets like this?” 

“I -- yes,” she manages, then shoves a hand down between her legs to make sure, because she wants to. The thrill of it is almost as good as Claude’s seemingly inexhaustible energy, his cock drilling into the perfect spot that means when she does come, it’s going to be both hard _and_ messy. 

“Good. Come on, sweetheart, don’t hold back, let’s fuck this bed _up_ ,” he pants, relentlessly cheerful. “Let me feel you come on my cock, Edelgard, show me how much you love my good ideas --” 

She huffs part of a laugh, part of a groan into the pillow, which is too much fluff and fabric against her face so she sweeps her hand out -- the one that isn’t busy rubbing between her legs -- and knocks the pillow to the floor. 

“Yeah, yeah, make a mess, that’s it --” 

Edelgard tosses her hair out of her face, turns to look over her shoulder at Claude -- he’s bright-eyed and flushed, golden brown skin gleaming with sweat as he tilts his hips and fucks her somehow harder, not slowing, his feet kicking at the bedding with abandon and she honestly thinks he could do this for hours. He won’t need to -- she’s about to come again, she can feel it building, growing, her thighs shaking and her breath caught, mouth open, calves tensed so hard she’s on the verge of having one cramp up. 

“I -- on top of me, now --” it’s all she can manage, but he gets it, finally dropping his weight fully on her back. This is the part that will sometimes be too much, but she’s close enough that it’s nothing but a rush to have his muscular body sprawled on top of her, his hot breath spilling on the back of her neck. He grabs her free hand and curls his fingers around it, his other hand clutching at the sheets. 

“Gonna -- feel you come, then I’ll -- come all over this bed, yeah, you want me to do that?” 

The thought of it pushes her over the edge and she comes on her fingers, muffling her cry into the bedding and biting at it as the sheer pleasure of her release washes over her; it so intense she nearly forgets to breathe, sparks behind her eyes as she humps down on her own hand to drag out every single delicious aftershock. Claude fucks her through it, doesn’t slow, and the bed is bouncing with their efforts. 

He pulls out abruptly and pushes her to her side; that way she can watch as he kneels up, throws his head back, and jerks himself off. Possessed by a desire to help, Edelgard scrambles to her knees and gets behind Claude, reaching around to take his cock in hand. “Let me.” 

“Ah.” Claude leans back against her, and she can’t quite kiss him but she can kiss his shoulder. “Gonna make me come, sweetheart?” 

“Yes, of course,” she says, a little bossily, because he likes that, especially in bed. His cock is slick from pre-come and from fucking her into a mind-numbing orgasm. She nips at his skin, licks the small hurt and says, “Defile this monster’s bed for me, Claude, do it _now_ ,” and twists her hand over the head of his cock, thumb rubbing on the underside. 

She sees the flash of his grin before his head falls back and he moans, shuddering, his gorgeous body going tense as he tips over the edge. Edelgard feels a vicious, intense satisfaction at watching Claude come all over the wrecked and messy sheets. There is nothing pristine and perfect about it now. 

And it’s all her doing. She smiles. 

Claude sits back on his heels. Edelgard pulls her hand away and wipes it on the coverlet. “That was one of your better ideas.” 

“Mm.” Claude glances over at her. “I thought you’d like it.” He rakes a hand through his sweaty hair and says, almost apologetically, “but, uh. You’re kind of a mess.” 

She doesn’t doubt that. Her hair is a tangle, her body is still sweat-damp, and she’s sticky and a little sore between her legs. But she shrugs, sliding off the bed, pulling her hair off her neck and sighing in relief. “Nothing a hot bath and a comb won’t fix.” 

“Just. People might see us on the way to find those things,” he says, bounding off the bed. In typical Claude fashion, he gathers her clothes first. 

“They’ll assume I climbed the stairs too fast, probably,” she says. 

“They’ll assume you and your husband fucked somewhere,” he says, slyly, handing over her underthings. 

“People do not often look at me and assume debauchery, Claude.” 

“That’s just ‘cause they don’t know how good you are at it.” He takes her hand and kisses it. It’s the hand she used to get herself off; he licks her fingers like a cat. 

“Perhaps.” She lets him suck on her fingers, then tugs her hand away. “Help me find the pins for my hair.” 

He does so, helping her pin it up and then, instead of leaving, they go half-dressed to the balcony. It’s beginning to turn to evening, and the cooler air soon has her shivering. Claude helps her into her dress and when she sees herself in the mirror, she looks only a little flushed. Her eyes are perhaps too bright, but her hair is the most obvious tell that she’s been -- well. Thoroughly fucked on the archbishop’s bed. 

Claude glances at the bedding. “Should we -- I hate the fact of making anyone clean this up, but I also kinda like it all…uh.” he waves a hand. 

She arches a brow at him, amused. “Suitably filthy?” 

“Yeah.” His smile flashes. “What do you think, Princess?” 

“Leave it. I’ll tell the work staff to please stay out, people still listen to me. In a few days, we’ll have the room stripped and everything removed. This would make a nice office.” She watches as he strides across to pick something up off the floor -- the bit of ripped curtain. 

“A souvenir,” he says, tucking it into one of the many hidden pockets where he probably has a knife and a vial of some fast-acting poison. He offers her his arm. “And I guess we could tell them to put a lock on the door.” 

She curls her fingers around his proffered arm with a slight smile at his antics and they head out. Edelgard takes one last look at the room before she pulls the door shut behind her. 

It might be the last shrine to fall, but fall it did, just like all the others.


End file.
